Dagenham?

I grew up in Dagenham, moved there when I was 5, moved away when I was 20, but my family still live there.It is a shithole. Particularly when I was growing up, it was violent and racist. That element seems to be dying away now, though it's still a bland urban shithole.

What I've found with Dagenham is that your immediate neighbours make the biggest difference. My folks currently live next to an Indian family and have a currently good experience. But their previous next door neighbours were between 5 and 25 eastern Europeans who were well known for credit card fraud and stealing - my parents were too scared to go on holiday and I think they were right to be scared. Prior to that their next door neighbours were a young couple who beat their kids and where the husband beat his wife. Prior to that, when I lived there, it was a woman who, a few years after breaking up with her husband and moving out, killed her small child.

Dagenham isn't a bad place per se but it's where the dregs go; people who have no other options. That can lead to camaraderie - it did with my friends. But it can also lead to some truly horrible experiences.

Honestly if I were you I'd be looking at Chingford. Not much more expensive and much nicer and more central.

I've always prior to moving to the coast lived south gradually moving further and further out
the borough bermondsey new cross Brockley south croydon
also had a stint in Newington Green loved it there but finances said otherwise if I had my time again I would go south west battersea Clapham but it all comes down to the pennies
But East London as always been in a shithole and always will be that goes for Essex as well
happy hunting do the right thing and head south
but where ever you are just lock your front door and leave the chavs crack heads and bulgmanians outside